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Vaccine Choice, or Risky Move?
Federal health authorities revealed yesterday that Chicago lags behind the state and the country in childhood vaccinations. Many kids don’t get their shots because parents decline them. Public health experts say that’s led to the resurgence around Chicago of a disease that had been nearly snuffed out.
Illinois saw 32 cases of measles this summer – more than any year since 1994, and the most of any state. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded most were unvaccinated – and specifically, unvaccinated kids who are homeschooled.
A group of south suburban homeschoolers meet regularly in a Matteson park. Among them is the family of Africa Porter-Ollarvia. She says vaccinations don’t fit in with their philosophy about health.
PORTER-OLLARVIA: With us being ethnic vegetarians, taking vitamins, minerals and herbs daily, we opt to get all of what we need from our natural resources. So we don’t necessarily need those shots, that kind of give you some things, side effects and things you don’t need anyway.
Like a lot of vaccine skeptics, their wariness is tied up with distrust of a lot of big institutions – here’s Africa’s husband Jason.
OLLARVIA: There’s money that’s being made off these vaccinations. The education system, the medical industry, pharmaceutical industry and the food industry, they all work in conjunction to make money.
They’re also worried about side effects. And this conversation with a fellow homeschool mom isn’t helping matters.
HOFFMAN: She totally broke out everywhere. It was horrible. She spiked a fever, it was a freakin’ nightmare. …
Lynette Hoffman is telling her about the Hepatitis and Flu vaccines her 5-month old just got.
HOFFMAN: Yeah, it was disgusting.
PORTER-OLLARVIA: Was she, like in pain?
HOFFMAN: Yeah, she was screaming her head off …
Lynnette is conflicted about the shots … but she says she’s not convinced it’s worth turning them down.
HOFFMAN: Statistics show that children who are vaccinated just don’t get tehse diseases. That’s just the honest to God truth, they just don’t. So I personally still choose to vaccinate. That was a horrible, horrible experience, but I will probably more than likely continue out the series.
Kids in Illinois can’t go to school without getting vaccinations. But the number of exemptions has more than doubled in the last decade. The law doesn’t even apply to homeschoolers, and the state doesn’t track how many forego vaccines. The Cook County Public Health department’s Catherine Counard says the number is growing, and that’s set the stage for outbreaks like this summer’s.
COUNARD: The last time we had a case of measles was in the late 80s, in suburban Cook County.
Counard says this year, the county had 11. She says parents underestimate the disease, which can cause blindness, brain swelling and death. Still, families who choose not to vaccinate can often find sympathetic doctors. One is Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, of Rolling Meadows-based Homefirst Health Services. He says his practice sees about 15-thousdand families … more than half are homeschooled, and 9 in 10 don’t vaccinate.
SPITZER: What kind of incidence of the communicable diseases that we vaccinate for regularly do you see in your practice?
EISENSTEIN: Virtually zero! Virtually zero!
Eisenstein rejects the well-established science that has shown vaccines work. But he says the main reason parents don’t vaccinate … is autism. Any connection between vaccines and autism has been widely rejected by mainstream scientists. Just this week, another peer-reviewed study published in the journal PLoS One concluded that no link exists. But Eisenstein, who’s been a licensed physician for 35 years, is unconvinced.
EISENSTEIN: The American Academy of Pediatrics has made one of the most unscientific arguments I’ve ever heard. We have no clue what causes autism, but it’s not vaccines. I mean, have you heard anything more silly?
It’s that kind of question that has parents playing it safe, and skipping the shots. But that’s an illusion of safety, says Cook County’s Catherine Counard. And more than that: she says it’s selfish.
COUNARD: This is not a personal choice that they’re making. They’re making a choice for the entire community. Because they’re putting others at risk. And if their children become infected and expose a newborn infant who then dies, that’s a pretty serious consequence.
Overall, immunization rates remain high in this country. But where most doctors see life-saving shots, thousands of families in Illinois are deciding that the treatment is riskier than the disease.
I'm Gabriel Spitzer, Chicago Public Radio.
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